


All of us, sitting in the dark

by One_Day



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, F/F, Self-Esteem Issues, it's not groundbreaking or anything, lucisev if you squint but I'm tagging it anyway, the setting is pretty vague, this is like your generic lucina and sev convo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 14:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11038278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/One_Day/pseuds/One_Day
Summary: In which Severa's a loner, Lucina finds her, and they talk. They've both got a lot to live up to, but most importantly, themselves.





	All of us, sitting in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I'm surprised I haven't written about Lucina and Severa until now (I've got some character studies of them separately and one really short fluffy thing for them that doesn't count). But here it is, I guess!

Alcohol burns its way down her throat and Severa coughs into her elbow, already regretting her haste. The wine is bitter like bile, but she chokes it down anyway.

“Oh, there you are!” A voice calls distantly, not what Severa wants to hear, she tells herself, but maybe it is. Soft footsteps draw near, and she wipes at her lips, praying that the words aren’t directed at her, though there is really no one else in range to speak to. Soon, a shadow leaves its darkened shape in the glow seeping from the doorway. “I didn't see you on guard duty so I was worried something had come up. Anyhow, why are you sitting out here, Severa?”

The redhead leans back on one hand, looking away, then back again. She has a tinted glass bottle in her hand, half empty.

Maybe she should just try to open up for once. It's Lucina after all, and she’s too exhausted to summon her cutting wit and shoo her away.

Finally, Severa asks, “Don’t you ever feel sick?”

It doesn't quite answer the princess’s question and all she gets is a hard stare, so she continues, heat licking up like flames in her words. “Like you know there’s something wrong with you -- That you could be so much more, but you aren’t? Well, that's why I’m out here.”

A quick intake of breath from Lucina’s direction, then, “Are you drunk?”

For a moment Severa frowns and lets out a wry laugh, the sound falling short off her lips. She tips back the bottle and doesn’t answer.

Seeing the darkness in Severa’s eyes and the grimace on her face at the question is enough to make Lucina feel a sudden twinge of guilt. She could leave. Just turn away and pretend it’s all inebriated rambling, spend the night with the others eating good food and making merry, but there’s some truth there, maybe.

So she sits down tentatively a few feet away as if Severa could hurt her and folds her hands in her lap. The redhead stares into the bottle before speaking up again.

“It’s just...I thought you might be the kind of person who would understand. Maybe I was wrong. I-I don't know. It's probably better that way.”

There’s no hesitation in the Lucina’s voice when she blurts, “But perhaps I do.”

“What?”

“Maybe I do understand what you mean. Look at Father. He’s hardly older than us in this time, but it seems like he can do anything. And I…” Lucina tapers off, looks up at the black sky. Her eyes burn, reflective and glassy in the dim light. She can feel the other woman’s glare on her skin, boring through her like hot coals.

“No,” Severa states firmly, shaking her head, “No, you don’t get to start with that. None of your ‘I’m a failure of a daughter, I couldn’t even stop Grima once’ crap, okay? Because to me -- to all of us kids... you are our exalt. Not Chrom.”

When Lucina doesn’t meet her eyes, Severa reaches out, but it’s too hard to follow through, and she fists her hand in her own tunic instead. Teeth grit together, come apart.

“Look, Lucina, you came back again, didn’t you? Even if none of us followed, you would have. That says a lot.”

Dark blue locks fan out for a second as the young princess shakes her head fiercely, wildly almost, with some kind of conviction that borderlines on feverish. The hard glint of gold atop her head clashes with the quality of her next words.

“But it’s exactly like you said before! I could be more. I should be more. I don't even know if I've been able to change anything!” The timbre of her voice trembles, a small part anger and a large part shame.

And because Severa hurts too, blood running thick and hot with liquor in her veins, she almost yells that if Lucina weren’t enough then what about her, petty and stubborn like a flea-ridden savage mutt, limping about in dark alleys or near piles of reeking garbage and excrement every day until its inevitable death. But she swallows her self hate for the moment, though it catches in her throat. The blue haired woman doesn’t need to hear whining or complaining now.

It isn't about me, she thinks, and shoves down the feeling.

The way Lucina sits, like she could curl into herself and vanish, is so forlorn and uncharacteristic that Severa can't stand it. So a quick breath, then she begins, “So what? Yeah, you could be better, but so could everyone else. Even-” She stops, gestures inadequately. “Even Cordelia. Just because you could be more doesn’t mean you aren’t enough already…and you are. You’re amazing.”

The last part comes out soft, but it hangs in the air longer than the mercenary intends. Thankfully, her words manage to sound like more than simple flattery.

Severa sighs, feels the alcohol laden air stream out of her mouth. She’s been out of wine for a while now, and there’s enough fire in her veins that she can finally offer some physical contact. Once her palm is against Lucina’s back, the rest is easy, and Severa rubs what she hopes are soothing circles with her thumb.

Where she almost expects the other woman to shake off the touch, Lucina just raises her hands to cover her face and lets out a breath or a sigh or a whimper or something that sounds an awful lot like crying.

After a minute, the taller girl murmurs, “Do you really think so?”

“Without a doubt. I mean, you’re always so driven. And-and you’re strong. Stronger than any of the rest of us, not just physically either. Hell, even a bug would feel inspired if you were around.” 

Severa mutters something about Cherche’s insect collection under her breath and maybe she imagines it, but the lodestar’s mouth quirks up a bit at the corners.

Then it’s Lucina who turns and wraps her arms around the mercenary in a firm hug. She's surprisingly thin, as if all her hard edges and corners are just an illusion, and she could give out like an empty suit of armor without a stand. But she’s lean too, and warm, so Severa doesn’t know where to put her hands, just holds them out in the air inadequately like a broken shield.

“Thank you, Severa. I’m so glad that you’re here, you have no idea.”

“Um. You’re welcome,” she says, almost like a question, gaze fixed on the doorway behind Lucina. She rids the thought of adding ‘it's what I'm here for’ because that holds too much truth for her to comfortably admit. The moment is terse and awkward and a little bit vulnerable because she really doesn't know how to do this -- this cheering up thing -- with the help of alcohol or without. Severa's never been the best at giving motivational speeches, even though she's had plenty of chances to learn, being friends with Noire.

Cloth slides rough against cloth with a soft hiss and Lucina’s warmth fades. Her eyes are red-rimmed and damp, tracks of tears down her cheeks where the dust has been washed away. She sniffs and wipes at them.

“So. Now that you've got me recruited into your unable-to-live-up-to-parents club, I think I get the appeal of withdrawing for a while…” A brief lapse before, “It's hard, isn't it? To love them so much and yet wish you could be better than them.”

Severa chuckles, the sound deep and ragged from her chest, “Yeah, well. I'm used to it. People will always just think of me as Cordelia’s weirdo mistake of a child. ‘She was probably dropped on her head as a kid,’ they say, ‘she's nothing like her mother!’”

Then Lucina looks at her -- really does -- brows drawn, staring her down in that sad way of hers that says she grew up too fast, when she murmurs, “It shouldn't have to be that way.”

In that moment, it's not about Severa, not even about Lucina. It's about all the kids grown bitter and hard from expectations never fulfilled. From being different from what they should when all they've done is try to get by, and do their best because God, people aren’t born magic and heroes and slaying dragons, no, they fall and get up and get kicked down again to scratch at the earth but in the end they still find a way to whatever it is that matters.

Because how tragic would it be to give up without even a taste of what could’ve been? To live and die in a state of indecision, only wishing that you could've done more?

From the recesses of her mind, the mercenary can recall some vague quote, dusty like old pages from another past that say something about trusting thyself. So she does. She vows to all the other screwed up kids that she doesn't have to be better than Cordelia, doesn't need titles or a Pegasus or any of that, just has to try and be herself with all her bark and bite, even if that doesn't make her “perfect” or “genius” like the stuffy nobles say. Severa’ll still get there that way, closer to Lucina and to growing and to finally understanding just what she's here for and why.

So she takes long calloused fingers into her hands, looks up into bruised looking eyes that still shine, and says, “You’re right. It doesn't have to be.”

Lucina’s gaze is clear, searching, and Severa can’t stop now, has to put into words this important thing that they both know in their hearts. “Who can tell you you’re leading the wrong way, or...or talking the wrong way, or living the wrong way? Those people don't know what we can do, they don’t know anything about us at all!”

Her voice doesn’t fade in the darkness, it spreads and echoes, but when it does it comes back stronger and stronger until she is convinced that it's true, and she is powerful with it. Lucina grins, just a curl of her lips into her cheeks, and nods, solemn in a way that would be amusing if not for the situation.

“No one,” the princess utters, barely audible. “You’re really a force all on your own, Severa. And I’m sorry if I’ve been intruding on your free time and dumping all my problems onto you this whole time because I-”

“No. You don’t need to say that...You don’t need to apologize, I mean. I think...that I needed to hear myself say it out loud, too. So I could really get myself to believe it.”

This time Severa can tell that the other woman understands, sees it plainly on her face and flickering in that divine mark in her eye, and they don't say anything for a while. Lucina sits close now, knees pressed to the mercenary’s thighs, not distant and afraid anymore, Severa notices. The thought is comforting and reminds her of childhood, of braiding hair and sneaking out late, until she jolts out of her head at the sound of human voice.

“Would you mind terribly if I stayed here with you? I'm...not feeling up to returning to the others just yet,” Lucina says.

Severa can’t help the surprised look on her face. It takes her a second to answer, but when she does, it’s with confidence.

“Of course you can. As long as you need.”


End file.
